Thursday, January 17, 2008

King Jammys Sleng Teng'n Into The Digital Era

Like all royalty, King Jammys (born Lloyd James, Kingston, Jamaica) began his reign as a Prince by building amplifiers and repairing electrical equipment in the Waterhouse area of Kingston and eventually running his own sound system. After a brief hiatus in Canada, where he concentrated on doing studio and sound system work for others, he returned to Jamaica with the intention of creating his own recording studio. The young prince got his big break by joining forces with the reigning King - King Tubby. It was under Tubby's tutelage where he received his education in mixing and by the late 70's he began releasing his own productions including the debut album from Black Uhuru. It has been written that since Jammy was in touch with the artists in the burgeoning dancehall scene and a keen sense of what was going to be popular.

The story goes that in 1985 Jammys discovered a new riddim by altering one of the pre-programmed rock rhythms from a Casio digital music box. The rock beat was slowed considerably and when he recorded a young singer named Wayne Smith and his tune "Under Me SlengTeng" he forever changed the course of Jamaican music. The new digital riddim was christened SlengTeng and instantaneously became massive. Before long there were over 200 varied versions of the riddim by every producer in Jamaica and probably three times as many artists lining up to take a lyrical ride. What made SlengTeng so important was that it eliminated the need for expensive studio musicians and studio time and put the ability for creating affordable music directly in the hands of independent producers and artists nationwide.

Today we're paying tribute to SlengTeng with a mix I put together. There are 24 songs in total, (25 if you count the King Jammys version that floats in and out throughout the mix) all dating back to the dawning of the digital era in 1985, and if you're a fan of early dancehall this should give you a nice sampling of one of the most revolutionary riddims ever created and one of my personal all-time favorites. If you're more of a roots fan or don't really care for the SlengTeng itself I highly recommend not downloading this one - you'll have yourself in a Casio induced coma within 3 minutes! This is probably as current as you're ever going to see me get here on Distinctly Jamaican Sounds but this has been in the works for months and I finally got the time to finish it up! I hope you enjoy it!

10 comments:

...sure remember the day it hit the air waves...totally different reggae feel from any past tunes I'd heard...and seemed nuff artist jumped on sleng teng bandwagon!!....some might say that the tune also "killed off" nuff musicians...goodby live drummer...enter beat box...etc....new technology making it easier than ever for some to enter the musical arena...